


Requiem

by singthestars



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Death, Gen, Mercy Killing, Not a Happy Story, i made myself cry writing this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 11:05:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8486920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singthestars/pseuds/singthestars
Summary: "Do not grieve for me, Maker of All.
  
  Though all others may forget You,
  
  Your name is etched into my every step.
  
  I will not forsake You, even if I forget myself."
  
  - The Chant of Light: Trials, 1:9
Harding finds someone familiar on the streets of Denerim.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta'd, all mistakes are my own.

Lace Harding wandered through the streets of Denerim, the sounds of the marketplace filling the air as the smells from the food stalls tried to tempt her from her quest. The vials of  liquid clinked in her pocket, a high cheerful sound that belied their poisonous contents. They day was too beautiful, she thought, for such ugliness.

She entered a back alley and pushed the hood from her face. A dirty figure sat with his back to the wall, arms wrapped around himself as he rocked back and forth. His clothes were nothing but rags and his bare feet looked nearly blue in the late autumn air.

Blond hair had grown out, reaching just past his chin, and a wispy beard covered his face. Once amber eyes were now cloudy, shot through with streaks of bright blue, and Harding could feel her heart breaking when they looked up at her.

“Did… did you get it?”

“Yes, Commander.”

“Where?! Give it to me” the figure tried to lunge forward but only managed to fall, catching himself with one hand before his face could hit the ground.

“Shhhh,” Harding stepped forward and gently pushed him back so that he was once more propped against the wall, shocked at the feel of trembling bones beneath her hand. 

Once he was steady, Harding retrieved the vials of lyrium from her pocket. 

 

In her opinion, the greatest crime of the Chantry was not the treatment of the mages but the enslavement of it’s templars, forcing this upon men and women who had sworn to protect them.

Even after the discovery of how the lyrium worked, blue crystals forming in the body and slowly destroying the brain until there was eventually nothing left of the person that once was, the Chantry had continued feeding it’s Templar’s addictions until they slowly lost their minds.

 

Her mind called back to the imposing figure he had once cut against the ramparts, the strength of his voice as he rallied the troops, and the fire in his eyes as he trained in the courtyard of Skyhold. 

It was hard to see that man in the ragged creature before her, who she had found broken and begging in the streets.

The man grabbed the lyrium from her hands and quickly drank, tipping back one bottle after the other before dropping them to the ground.

“Thank you,” he sighed. “The pain…..” Eyes closed as he relaxed against the stone. The tremors in his hands faded until they were nearly steady.

 He suddenly looked much younger, she thought, as the lines on his face smoothed out in relief. Harding could almost imagine the young man he might have been: eager and hopeful, ready to serve the Chantry any way he could. It would have been before the torture he endured at the hands of Uldred and the horrors he had seen in the Gallows of Kirkwall.

Harding reached out and touched his cheek as tears began to fall down her own.

 “Commander… Cullen. I’m so sorry.”

 He opened his eyes and focused on her face. For the first time, Harding thought she saw recognition in them, intelligence that had been lacking as the lyrium crystals ravaged his brain.

An easy smiled tugged at his lips and his hand reached out to mirror her own, his thumb catching a tear.

“I know. It’s okay.”

 

A small gasp escaped him as the knife pierced his chest.

 

His hand dropped down and gripped her shoulder, fingers spasming against the fabric of her cloak. Harding leaned forward and pressed her forehead against his.

“May Andraste guide you, Commander.”

After a moment, she guided him back, his hand falling to rest on his lap as he stared blankly past her. Reaching up, she gently closed his eyes.

Despite the pain in her heart, a part of her couldn’t help but feel relieved.

Her Commander had deserved more than death in a back alley. He had deserved to either go in glorious battle, with his story being told for generations, or old and loved, surrounded by family and friends. But he also did not deserve losing what little was left of his mind, until he was nothing more than a shell, alive but gone forever.

 

At least now he was no longer in pain.

 

Harding pulled the dagger from his heart and carefully set it on the ground beside him, and prayed:

_Draw your last breath, my friend._

_Cross the Veil and the Fade and all the stars in the sky._

_Rest at the Maker's right hand,_

_And be Forgiven.”_

 

She wiped the tears from her face and stepped back, pulling her hood over her head. Sister Leliana must be informed and the Inquisitor… Harding clenched her fist at the thought. It should have been Cadash’s blood covering her hands. This entire situation was his fault.

Though not well known, Harding was aware that when the Commander had left the Templars, he had tried to cut the ties completely, including the lyrium. It was only at the Inquisitor’s insistence that he had taken it back up, too afraid to let his own pain risk the position that he held.

 

It was a decision that would be paid for in his sanity and blood.

 

Once this was over, Cadash would answer for this crime, she thought to herself. Once this was over...

Harding still had to meet with her contact from Tevinter and the sun was getting low in the sky. There would be time for mourning later. She stood for another moment and tucked his memory deep in her heart.

She would rejoice his life and remember him as he was, a man strong enough to command the armies that would save the world, kind enough to care of the mabari’s who had lost their partners, and good enough to sacrifice his own future so that others may live.

“Goodbye, Commander.”

Quietly, she turned and slipped back out into the marketplace, letting herself get lost in the crowd as her thoughts turned towards the future.

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sorry.


End file.
